How do Bookies price up their Football Match Market odds?

Here's one approach, based on recent matches, that will give you a lot of ideas:

http://www.football-data.co.uk/ratings.pdf

Yes it will be done on ratings and as Max says 2.26 Home means they rate those 2 teams as equals

So you can work out a rating table starting with the 2.68 3.65 2.68 Max gives for a match between equals at a neutral venue though the draw odds (and therefore the odds of the 2 joint favs ) are variable dependant on wether the game is expected to be high or low scoring.

If Team A is 1 pt superior on the table then they could be something like 2.55 and Team B 2.82

The Bookies could use rating charts in the old days which would have all the possible combinations of odds for each team to win based on the difference in rating.

The Rating would just be a subjective verdict on the ability of the teams rather than something worked out in an objective mathematical way . Example: On any objective stat measurement of the last 30/40 matches Newcastle are better than Liverpool but any bookie would make Liverpool favs to beat them  at a neutral venue .


A table like this for the teams would be easy to use to work out the odds from the table lower down

Team	Rating
Man City	101
Man United	99
Chelsea	96
Arsenal	95
Spurs	95
Liverpool	93
Newcastle	90

Team A Superiority	Team A		Team B
0	6/4		6/4
1	11/8		13/8
2	5/4		7/4
3	6/5		15/8
4	11/10		2/1
5	EvS		9/4
6	10/11		5/2
7	5/6		11/4
8	4/5		3/1
9	8/11		10/3
10	4/6		7/2
11	8/13		4/1
12	4/7		9/2
13	8/15		5/1
14	1/2		11/2
15	4/9		6/1

Using the above tables Man City are rated 5 superior to Chelsea so they would be Evens to win and Chelsea 9/4 at say Wembley .If we award 4 extra points for Home advantage then City are now 9 superior at Etihaad Stadium and therefore now 8/11 with Chelsea 10/3 .With Chelsea having home advantage they would be 1pt inferior so 13/8 with City at 11/8

That table is with old bookies odds from their 110% books .A proper table would be in decimals with draws included and to 100% books.

There is a very well written series on pricing football matches over at this site;)
.
http://www.bettingexpert.com/blog/how-to-calculate-probabilities-for-football-betting-using-poisson-part-1

That article is just about on the right track but the author is missing a blindingly obvious and far superior way of approaching it which is in fact far less complicated and subjective.

TOTGA - Sorry for being a bit cryptic but unfortunately I wouldn't particularly like to point it out to the type of person who already considers themselves expert enough to write on a site called bettingexpert when they're probably nothing more than a break even gambler themselves judging by what they write.

obermory     16 Sep 12 02:09 
Yes it will be done on ratings and as Max says 2.26 Home means they rate those 2 teams as equals

So you can work out a rating table starting with the 2.68 3.65 2.68 Max gives for a match between equals at a neutral venue though the draw odds (and therefore the odds of the 2 joint favs ) are variable dependant on wether the game is expected to be high or low scoring.

If Team A is 1 pt superior on the table then they could be something like 2.55 and Team B 2.82

I disagree with most of that.

1) The computer ratings system will give them the prices.
2) They will then have a small range for variation as to which price they put up based on experience of how they expect bets to come in.
3) Quick check to make sure there are no arbitrage opportunities with any of the other bookies/exchanges.